


Merry-Go-Round of Life

by lutzaussi



Category: Howl no Ugoku Shiro | Howl's Moving Castle, Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, M/M, Magic, general stupidity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9081886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lutzaussi/pseuds/lutzaussi
Summary: Kakashi is not expecting to meet the Witch of the Waste in his clothing shop, but he's also not expecting to be turned into a dog or expecting to become the babysitter of the Wizard Iruka's assistant.But, uh, all those things happen.And Kakashi begins to understand that maybe he was a little sheltered for most of his life.





	

Nobody talks about the Wizard Iruka in anything but hushed whispers, stolen in light places where they believe he isn’t likely to lurk. People say that he is actually a dragon who enchants young men and women, lures them to his castle where he devours their hearts; people say that he is a fraud, and he lives away in the Wastes to get away from his lies; and people say that he just a wizard, no great man but good at what he does.

-

Kakashi has no opinion of the Wizard Iruka, because he has more than enough things to worry about in his own life than a supposedly evil wizard who spirits away beautiful boys and girls. There are countless appointments for tailorings, he’s running out of black thread and the shop he usually buys it from is closing, and Sakura has demanded that he visit her before the parade.

That does not happen. He’s only just  _ closing _ the shop when the parade starts, and there’s so many people on the main streets that he’s forced to use the back alleys to make his way over to the bakery that Sakura works at.

They’re empty, and he almost exults at his own luck, until he sees three figures silhouetted against the light at the end of the alley he’s in. Kakashi is torn between continuing and going back, but the decision is made for him when an arm encircles his waist and his right hand is taken by a gloved hand.

“Walk with me,” a voice in his ear says, and they turn abruptly down a different alley. Kakashi gets the faintest glimpse of the three figures following them before he looks at the young man holding onto him.

His smile is to die for, and Kakashi sort of feels like melting into a puddle because he is  _ very _ cute. Brown hair, dark skin, a scar across his nose that, if anything, makes him look more charming.

“Oh,” the man says, and his eyes are looking in front of them, “I fear they’re trying to cut us off. Please, do keep walking.”

Kakashi has his mouth open and there are at least a dozen questions he wants to ask, but he asks none of them because they are suddenly stepping up onto the air, above three forms that are advancing toward them. Kakashi gets a look at them from about three meters above, and gasps to see that they are not human, but strangely oily figures in the shape of humans.

“It’s best to not look down,” the young man says, and when Kakashi looks at him again he is smiling.

-

Kakashi carefully does not mention the brown-haired man to Sakura when she comes out the back of the bakery to meet him, a leather pouch with some fresh cakes in her hands and flour all over her clothing.

“I told you to come over before the parade,” she whined, giving him a hug anyway.

“The shop was still busy,” he explains, hugging her back and taking the pouch when she presses it to his hands.

“Please enjoy today, if only for my sake,” she says when a blonde-haired girl calls for her to get back inside.

-

The shop is dark like most of the city is when he returns, unlocks the door and flicks the gas lamps on. There is some suiting that he needs to finish sewing for the next day, but first he takes off his coat and scarf, puts the leather bag that Sakura gave him onto the scarf, and returns to the main room to pull down some pre-cut fabric that was already pinned and waiting for attention.

The bell on the door jingles and he doesn’t look up from the form that he has the pinned fabric draped over, calls, “We’re closed! Our hours are posted on the window.”

“Oh,” says a voice, and Kakashi abruptly stops, drops his tape measure, because that voice is  _ oily _ and  _ bad _ . He turns slowly, sees a tall man with black hair and markings on his face standing in the middle of the wood floor, a slow smile pulling his lips up in the most horrifying of smiles.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not here for a suit,” the man says, steps forward, and Kakashi stops himself from taking a step back. Alarm bells are going off in his mind because he is fairly sure--almost  _ positive _ \--that this man is the Witch of the Waste. He steps forward again and reaches a hand out, but he doesn’t actually  _ touch _ Kakashi, just says, “Hm, you’re not important. No matter, you will be dealt with.”

Something happens, but Kakashi can’t tell what. He stays motionless, and the man turns away after a few moments, smirking to himself, calls to two of the oil-men, and leaves.

He waits until the man leaves before even moving again. There’s urgency in his mind, because the witch did something to him and he can’t tell what until he stands up and--oh. Oh, no.

Thankfully nobody else is in the shop to see him tearing into the back room, newly-clawed and padded feet raking the wooden floor that he’d been so meticulous to keep looking like new. The mirrors don’t lie to him, and Kakashi slumps to the floor, places his front paws over his head and bats down the panic in his chest. When he opens his eyes again, though, he looks the same.

He is a  _ dog _ .

As distant as the panic makes his good sense, Kakashi knows that he can’t stay in the shop, that he needs to get out of the city. There’s not much that he can feasibly take with him, either, because he lacks the thumbs necessary to carry things and--

He runs up the stairs, tugs his thick, navy-blue scarf around his neck as best he can and noses down the soft leather pouch that Sakura had sent the cakes in. After he fills it with some cheese and meat from the fridge--an arduous process of trial and error--he leaves through the back, pouch in his mouth and scarf around his neck.

-

It doesn’t take long for him to leave the city, because his legs are long and the streets are empty. He begins to tire when he makes it past the smattering of forest and to the moors. And, worst of all, he doesn’t know what he’s going to  _ do _ . Kakashi pauses mid morning, when the fog has risen and he can’t see anything past the hedges, eats the cheese and meat and, after a short rest and after tucking the leather bag under the hedge, continues on his way.

It’s a little boring, once he’s used to the movements of his legs and paws and the overabundance of smelly things, and it isn’t long before he rests again, tucks himself off the dirt path slightly under the hedge to let his paws rest.

And he would rest, only the hedge starts to  _ move _ and he nearly brains himself getting out from under it.

There’s a rather large stick caught in the brambles and Kakashi crawls back under them so he can nudge it out from inside the hedge. It falls onto the dirt path with a rather final  _ thwock _ , and Kakashi finds himself face to face with a scarecrow sporting a rather magnificent turnip as a head. He scrambles out from under the hedge, sits, and considers the rags covering the two staves, the top hat that has done an admirable job of staying on the turnip.

But he has no use for a fallen scarecrow, and Kakashi soon turns and trots away, continues on the path and deeper into fog.

-

Kakashi’s back on the dirt path after another brief rest when he hears a rhythmic  _ thock thock thock _ from a distance. He continues on, but despite increasing his speed the noises get louder and closer and finally, when it’s right behind him, he dives to the side of the path, buries himself in the thick grass that has replaced the hedge.

The noise stays next to him, and very loud, and Kakashi looks out and finds the turnip-headed scarecrow pounding a divot into the ground that he had been formerly standing on. Kakashi watches it for a few seconds, then sits up and asks, “Do you need something?”

The scarecrow stops bouncing for a moment. It swings around, so one of its arms is pointed down the path, and it  _ thock thock thocks _ in that direction.

“You want me to follow you?” he asks, head cocked to the side. The scarecrow spins around, and that’s good enough answer as any, so he lets the contraption lead him down the road.

-

The scarecrow lead him for a reason, and Kakashi figures that reason is the  _ massive walking castle _ that crests the fog directly in front of them after about another hour of walking. The scarecrow jumps up on the wide doorway that swings down with every step that the building takes, taps the doorway insistently until Kakashi manages to jump up onto it.

The scarecrow slips off and remains standing on the path, facing them, and wiggles as though waving goodbye.

Kakashi ignores it, pushes the door open and enters the moving castle. He can’t see much inside the room--it is dark because it’s night--except for the fire. The fire spouts blue then purple, so Kakashi slowly walks up to it, sits on his haunches and cocks his head at it.

“Don’t look at me like that, dog,” a voice says, and Kakashi doesn’t even pretend to be surprised when an almost violently purple set of eyes and matching mouth appear in the midst of the central flame, “how’d you get in?”

“The door was open,” he replies, and he derives a small amount of satisfaction when the fire flickers in surprise at his speaking.

“Huh, guess I forgot to lock it,” the flame replies, scoots forward as far as it can without leaving its log, “Well, well, you have a curse on you.”

“You think?” he snaps before he can stop himself. But anything else he would say about the curse--about the Witch of the Waste, the oily figures--locks up in his throat and stays there.

If anything, that makes the fire look smug. “Ho, ho,” it says, “Well, nice to meetcha. I’m Anko, fire demon extraordinaire. Could you hand me a log?”

He sits back a little, nudges one close enough so Anko can grab it with a particularly long lick of flame and tuck it into the metal log-holder. Anko slips back to the log and perches on it, asks “well, what brings you to the house of the Wizard Iruka?”

“The house of the Wizard Iruka?” he cocks his head again, looks around. Well, it’s neat and clean anyway, and doesn’t at all seem the type of house a wizard would keep. At least, the inside doesn’t, the outside looks like an absolute monster.

“Pft,” the fire demon scoots forward a bit, shoots a bit of flame out of it’s purple mouth in a way that Kakashi feels is mocking, “who even  _ are _ you? You find a walking castle in the middle of the moors and you push your way in and you’re surprised that it belongs to the Wizard Iruka?”

Kakashi ignores the fire, flops down on the perfectly warm rug that he has been sitting on. “M’names Kakashi,” he finally says, “and I didn’t fucking ask for this.”

The fire hums and flickers, and Kakashi tucks his scarf under his head before he falls asleep.

-

He wakes up, slits his eyes open when he feels the light pressure of a couple fingers on top of his head. It’s the--it’s the brown haired man with the scar on his nose from the day before, and Kakashi realizes with a sinking feeling in his stomach that this man is the Wizard Iruka.

“--through the door in the moor?” the wizard is asking of the flame, who is almost precariously leaning off of the fireplace to look at Kakashi.

“Yeah, yeah,” the fire says, sparking purple and gold, “think of it this way, Iruka, now you have a babysitter for the brat.”

The wizard sighs, glances down at Kakashi who pretends to be asleep, “Well…”

“C’mon, he can even talk! Naruto’ll be terrified of him!” the fire sparks more, then settles down when the wizard removes his hand from Kakashi’s head, slides another log onto the fireplace.

“Okay, okay,” Iruka sighs, stands and moves towards the stairs, “Just...make sure nothing bad happens.”

-

Naruto is an irritating little shit, Kakashi decides as soon as he meets the boy. Small, blonde, talking nonstop. Well, he isn’t  _ solely _ an irritating little shit, but that is largely the first opinion that Kakashi forms of him.

Though, it’s quite hilarious when he screams the first time Kakashi talks in front of him. Anko sends them on errands for Iruka, who seems to mostly be active when everybody else is asleep. Kakashi accompanies Naruto to the shops to buy groceries and items for spells, makes sure that they actually get the things that the wizard  _ needs _ instead of sweets and novelties.

He isn’t completely incompetent, though, puts together little spells that they sell at one of the places that the door opens to--a port town that Kakashi has never been to--and makes enough to continue buying the groceries. And even his methods of disguising himself are ingenious and, truthfully, quite effective.

He has thoughts about using the wizard or even the fire demon to try and figure out his own curse, it isn’t too annoying. Being a dog is a much more relaxed life than being a tailor in a bustling city. But he misses Sakura, his baby sister in all but blood, and he wonders if the shop is still afloat with its best tailor missing.

Iruka could tell him, or Anko, but he chooses not to ask. The less they know, the better.

-

A full two weeks after first being turned into a dog and joining the insanity that is the Wizard Iruka’s household Kakashi has somewhat settled into life in the moving castle. Not to say that it is regular or anything such as that, but he finds himself accepting most of what happens as it comes along, because really he has no better way to react to things following being turned into a  _ dog _ .

For example: Naruto sets himself on fire through some experiment of a spell and Kakashi says nothing, just pushes him under the sink tap and turns it on.

Kakashi almost hopes that Iruka doesn’t know about this, but Iruka does. Occasionally he wakes up in the middle of the night, overhears the wizard talking to his fire demon in soft, familiar tones. No use in feeling jealous, Kakashi reminds himself. Wizards are far too much trouble, anyway.

-

Kakashi accompanies Naruto to see the king on Iruka’s behalf, an old man with a goatee and no other hair on his head. He’s attended by his official Wizard, a young-looking woman named Tsunade who, apparently, is the root of many of their problems, Kakashi decides.

He decides this when they are fleeing from the castle, dishevelled former Witch of the Waste in tow. Naruto, of course, ran his mouth, but that wasn’t how the Witch of the Waste joined them, and Kakashi still doesn’t really know how that happened. 

Iruka takes one look at them, at the soldiers and the Wizard Tsunade’s slime-men following them, and locks them all inside the house, says that everything will be all right.

Kakashi can’t be sure that he means it, though.

-

The disaster with the king and the Wizard Tsunade is, thankfully, over.

But now they are in Kakashi’s  _ old shop _ which is now a flower shop and the witch who turned him into a dog is staying in his old room on the second floor, and all Kakashi wants to do is leave.

But--

But he doesn’t want to, he finds when he actually thinks about it. Iruka has the castle itself stay in and around a flower meadow and Naruto’s new job is cutting flowers for the shop, which Iruka insists that they need to make money, and Kakashi spends a lot of time laying in the flower meadow, enjoying the sun.

Iruka himself finds him there one day, watching Naruto wrangle a bucket of tulips and occasionally barking pointers for how to get out of the grasp of thorny roses.

“You know,” Iruka says in a jolly, considering tone, “you’ve never actually said why you broke into my house and are now eating all of my eggs.”

Kakashi doesn’t look at him, because the smiles that are usually on Iruka’s face are enough to make his brain go woozy. “I have nothing better to do,” he says, straightening up a little so he can still keep an eye on Naruto.

“Hm,” Iruka says, and Kakashi can’t help looking at him, at the small, somewhat sad smile on his face, “I think you’re quite lucky in that.”

-

“Get up,” he slides into the room, and the oily creatures follow him. “Get up!” he barks, again, nosing Naruto onto his back and yanking the former Witch of the Waste to follow him outside of the castle. Kakashi leaves Naruto with him, runs back inside to pick up a cast iron pan and lever Anko into it, despite the fire demon’s own protests.

Kakashi gets Anko out and the castle begins to crumble. It remains walking and upright, but bits of the roofs begin to fall off and the oil-creatures slip out of the pipes where the bathtub had been, get lost in the fog at the speed that the castle is moving.

Orochimaru grabs at him, grabs the pan and Anko slips into his waiting hands and the old man cackles.

Kakashi  _ panics _ . If he does something to Anko the castle will disappear. If he does something to Anko it’ll hurt  _ Iruka _ .

He isn’t really thinking straight at that point, just grabs the bucket of water that Naruto had kept for any fire emergencies and dumps it over Orochimaru.

He dumps it over Anko.

The castle shudders and splits and Kakashi is almost relieved that he is separated from the others. Naruto can take care of himself and Anko--Kakashi doesn’t think about Anko until the bracelet that Iruka had given him, the bracelet that connects him to Anko, rolls down the wooden floor and into the crevice that yawns below them.

Kakashi follows the bracelet down the crevice, doesn’t care that the castle has literally-- _ literally _ \--split above and around him, just follows the darkness down, down, down. He catches the bracelet before his feet gently touch ground and the flower field explodes into existence, whole and more lush than he remembers.

And maybe--

His head snaps up and he can see, across the pools of water and the hyacinths and daffodils, Iruka. Younger by ten years, but still Iruka.

His head is raised to the sky, to the falling stars that dance and speed across the water and flowers until they die, and Kakashi watches as he raises his hands, and a purple spark dances on his fingertips.

Kakashi begins running when Iruka brings the spark up to his face and his body lights up when he swallows it and the star burns through him and Anko comes out of his chest, heavy with his heart. He holds a hand out and when he feels the field begin to dissolve under his feet and Iruka and Anko look at him as one, he screams, “Remember me! Remember me in the future!”

-

He wakes up half-buried in a doorway, the bracelet still clenched in his fingers, and he doesn’t even think before he moves, pushes the red door off of himself and digs his way out of the dirt. Iruka is in the sky, circling, and he blindly lands when Kakashi is free and visible, his chestnut eyes blank and unseeing when Kakashi parts the brown and tan feathers in front of his face.

Kakashi steps close, takes hold of the man as his wings spread, and they fly.

They fall out of the sky down to the cliff where Anko and Orochimaru and Naruto are. Kakashi just barely manages to catch Iruka as his feathers molt and disappear and they land heavily, slide down and bump into Orochimaru. He still has Anko, now barely a purple-black flame surrounding the lump that Kakashi now knows is Iruka’s heart, and as soon as Kakashi has righted himself he holds out a hand to the old man, says, “Give it to me.”

Anko flickers, but Orochimaru holds the heart and the fire closer to himself, says, “No!”

Kakashi is tired and very close to crying, and he demands again, “Give it to me!”

“Give Anko to him, old man!” Naruto all but screams, and Orochimaru looks from the fire demon to Iruka, and slowly hands it over to Kakashi.

Kakashi has no idea what he’s doing but he cups Anko in his hands, brings the fire and the heart down to Iruka’s chest, and presses them both in where the man’s heart  _ should  _ be. And Kakashi fucking hopes and wishes that it will work.

Naruto and the witch gasp as Anko dances out of Iruka’s body, all but screaming with glee as it bounces into the heavens. Kakashi’s eyes remain on Iruka, whose eyes snap open and immediately land on him, and before Kakashi even realizes it they are hugging each other so tightly that he cannot breathe.

“So,” Iruka begins to say, but Anko flickers in between them and his face lights up with a smile, “You know, you don’t have to stay.”

The fire demon settles on one of his palms, turns back into the flickering form that used to haunt Iruka’s fireplace. “You know, I don’t have to,” Anko says, more purple than usual, “but I think I would like to.”

Iruka smiles at the fire, and lifts his eyes to Kakashi when he says, “You are more than welcome to.”

 

**Omake:**

Tsunade lets the image in the crystal die, leans back in her chair and pushes some stray hairs out of her face. “Well,” she muses, “maybe this war was a mistake, anyway.”

Jiraiya socks the woman as hard as he can in the shoulder, earning a screeching yelp from her, “Yeah, ya think? I was turned into a turnip-headed scarecrow all thanks to you! Now that kid--Kakashi or whatever--probably think I’m a pervert!”


End file.
